Gambit > bestofneworleans.com > october 16 > 2012
Chamber at Mandeville City Hall. State Treasurer John Kennedy gave a speech at the group’s “speak out” last month, as did several state legislators, including Donahue. The event was packed. DHH did not send a representative. Community support — and the possibility of a special session — yields varying degrees of optimism among the group’s members. Ott is dogged and thorough. A expert on state government, he makes the phone calls to Baton Rouge, tries to keep tabs on the possible special session signees and explains legislative procedure to the other group members. But he’s been in similar fights before and lost. During a group meeting late last month, he ended an enthusiastic presentation on Richard’s call for the session with this: “This is a rare event. It will be a momentous occasion, even if we don’t win the thing.” By contrast, psychiatrist Bradley’s confidence appeared shaken only once, when she was asked what she plans to do if, as seems likely, the hospital does close or transitions to a much smaller private operation. Her face drops, and she admits she hasn’t thought about it. Buras has. He says he will be open-minded about a private operator proposal. Unlike the long-term adult beds moving to Jackson and Pineville, the state wants to keep the juvenile beds near New Orleans, provided someone else runs them. If that doesn’t work out, he has some prospects in Mississippi. Buras says he’ll commute there from Louisiana until his son graduates from high school. “Then I’m getting out,” he says.
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Many in the group and among its sympathizers suspect that the cuts are less about fiscal pragmatism more about Jindal’s political ambitions and ideology. “This proposal is supposed to be because we don’t have enough money, and that’s just not accurate, folks,” Kennedy said at last month’s speak-out. “I’ve read that Louisiana has as many as 19,000 consultant contracts. ... You want to save money? That’s where you start.” There are other areas where revenue could be mined. A July report by the Associated Press found the state only collected $198 million in corporate taxes last year, 12 percent of about $1.7 billion it could have collected — if not for the state’s many corporate exemptions. An August Louisiana Budget Project analysis found that the state’s film tax credits cost $231 million last year. And in September — two months after Greenstein said SELH would close and LSU hospitals would soon see another round of large cuts — the state announced a $130 million budget surplus for the fiscal year ending June 30. “You would think $3.5 million wouldn’t be that difficult to come up with out of it,” Brister says. “I don’t think it’s just financial. It’s a policy decision. I think if it were just financial, we’d be having more discussion on how to fill that gap.” Along with SELH’s closure, the federal Medicaid reduction led to $152 million in cuts — including 1,500 jobs and more than 100 inpatient beds — to LSU’s hospital system, according to a plan developed by Dr. Frank Opelka, newly appointed head of the LSU Health Care Services Division. Opelka presented his plan to the LSU Board of Supervisors earlier this month. The board approved his plan unanimously and enthusiastically. Chairman Hank Danos said it will take the state’s health system from “good to great.” Not everyone agrees. Kliebert, the DHH spokesperson, says the administration does have an ideology when it comes to public health — but it’s not what its critics believe. “We still do feel strongly that we have to be a safety net of services,” Kliebert says, adding that DHH is moving long-term patients to other state facilities because state government is better equipped to care for them than private operators. “We try and always figure out, is this something we need to be doing as a state? Is this something the state needs to be providing? And clearly it is in the case of the intermediate care beds,” she says — as opposed to the acute beds, which Kliebert says can be operated by private groups for less money and without a drop in quality. “We’re doing it in a sustainable way, so that we can assure those services are sustained in the future. That’s our only ideological investment in this. We want to make sure we have the ability to sustain mental health services in the future,” she says. Hotard, whose daughter will be relocated because of the cuts, disagrees. “[Jindal]’s done nothing but close down everything that smacks of public health care,” she says. “If it’s public funding, we’re not taking care of anybody.” Since finding out that she’d be moving again, Shelley Hotard has been guarded and less willing to speak to or even see her mother. “I made the drive down on Saturday, driving in a rainstorm, got there, and she would not come out of the unit to see me,” Pat Hotard says. Shelley’s social worker has told Hotard that it might be the stress of the move. Bradley worries that the move could be traumatic for some of her patients, and that’s one of the reasons she’s speaking out. “For the long-term patients, and the children as well, a lot of them are unable to advocate for themselves,” Bradley says. “I think, ethically, we are obligated to be their voices. For most of my patients, Southeast is their home, albeit a temporary home. And the large majority of PAGE 25
Dr. Avery Buras is a child psychologist at Southeast Louisiana Hospital. He says he was hiring employees and never imagined the hospital would close: “We didn’t see it coming from anybody.”
PHOTO BY CHERYL GERBER